Quantitative and qualitative characteristics of greenery in suburban residential districts of Metro Manila

This case study was conducted to better understand the present situation of urban greenery in Marikina City, in the suburbs of metropolitan Manila, a typical large Asian city. A vegetation survey was conducted in residential districts of Marikina City, and the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of trees were analyzed. Lot size had some influence on the quantity of greenery in residential lots. In smaller lots, however, quantity did not increase in proportion to lot size. It appears, then, that the land-use controls for individual lots did not function effectively. Quantitative differences of greenery were related to qualitative differences, depending on the year or period of development of the residential area. In the newly developed residential lots, the greenery is comprised mostly of ornamental trees. Under the present circumstances, there is no assurance of sustaining the desired quantity of greenery in smaller residential lots. From these results, we proposed that regulations on lot size/coverage and promotion of tree planting involving local residents are needed to sustain urban greenery in residential districts

The Analysis of Apoptosis in Ameloblastoma: Evaluation of Bcl-2, Bcl-X, Bax, Bak

The apoptotic behavior of ameloblastomas was studied using antibodies against the apoptosis related proteins, Bcl-2, Bcl-X, Bax and Bak. Most of the outer layer cells were predominantly stained by the antimodulating proteins, Bax and Bak. Among the Bcl-2 family, Bcl-2 was the most ubiquitously expressed protein in ameloblastomas, while Bcl-X was expressed in the greatest concentrations. The acanthomatous areas overexpressed the apoptosis modulating proteins, especially Bak. The outer layer, whose cells had higher apoptotic inhibitor activity than inner layer cells, is suggested to be an active part

Effects of reduced rebreathing time, in spontaneously breathing patients, on respiratory effort and accuracy in cardiac output measurement when using a partial carbon dioxide rebreathing technique: a prospective observational study

INTRODUCTION: New technology using partial carbon dioxide rebreathing has been developed to measure cardiac output. Because rebreathing increases respiratory effort, we investigated whether a newly developed system with 35 s rebreathing causes a lesser increase in respiratory effort under partial ventilatory support than does the conventional system with 50 s rebreathing. We also investigated whether the shorter rebreathing period affects the accuracy of cardiac output measurement. METHOD: Once a total of 13 consecutive post-cardiac-surgery patients had recovered spontaneous breathing under pressure support ventilation, we applied a partial carbon dioxide rebreathing technique with rebreathing of 35 s and 50 s in a random order. We measured minute ventilation, and arterial and mixed venous carbon dioxide tension at the end of the normal breathing period and at the end of the rebreathing periods. We then measured cardiac output using the partial carbon dioxide rebreathing technique with the two rebreathing periods and using thermodilution. RESULTS: With both rebreathing systems, minute ventilation increased during rebreathing, as did arterial and mixed venous carbon dioxide tensions. The increases in minute ventilation and arterial carbon dioxide tension were less with 35 s rebreathing than with 50 s rebreathing. The cardiac output measures with both systems correlated acceptably with values obtained with thermodilution. CONCLUSION: When patients breathe spontaneously the partial carbon dioxide rebreathing technique increases minute ventilation and arterial carbon dioxide tension, but the effect is less with a shorter rebreathing period. The 35 s rebreathing period yielded cardiac output measurements similar in accuracy to those with 50 s rebreathing

Application of an in Situ PCR hybridization method to detection of human T-lymphotropic virus type I-infected cells in the lung.

We applied an in situ polymerase chain reaction (PCR) hybridization method in order to detect human T-lymphotropic virus type I-infected cells in routinely-processed paraffin sections of the lung from 13 autopsied patients with adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). Previously reported protocol resulted in somewhat non-specific staining in our sections. Therefore, we used a hot start PCR method using specialized commercially-available polymerase in order to increase the specificity. Of 6 patients with ATL cell invasion into the lungs, 4 exhibited strong positive staining of almost all invading ATL cells. In contrast, 7 patients without ATL cell invasion into the lungs did not demonstrate any significant reactivity. Since the method described here is a relatively simple hot start method and does not yield false-positives, it may allow us to determine whether human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) associated disorders are related to lymphocytes integrating the HTLV-I genome.</p

Transient and permanent gene transfer into the brain of the teleost fish medaka (Oryzias latipes) using human adenovirus and the Cre-loxP system

AbstractIn this study, we demonstrated that human type-5 adenovirus infected the brain of the teleost fish, medaka (Oryzias latipes), in vivo. Injection of adenoviral vector into the mesencephalic ventricle of medaka larvae induced the expression of reporter genes in some parts of the telencephalon, the periventricular area of the mesencephalon and diencephalon, and the cerebellum. Additionally, the Cre-loxP system works in medaka brains using transgenic medaka carrying a vector containing DsRed2, flanked by loxP sites under control of the β-actin promoter and downstream promoterless enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). We demonstrated that the presence of green fluorescence depended on injection of adenoviral vector expressing the Cre gene and confirmed that EGFP mRNA was transcribed in the virus-injected larvae

Machine learning-based segmentation of the rodent hippocampal CA2 area from Nissl-stained sections

The hippocampus is a center of learning, memory, and spatial navigation. This region is divided into the CA1, CA2, and CA3 areas, which are anatomically different from each other. Among these divisions, the CA2 area is unique in terms of functional relevance to sociality. The CA2 area is often manually detected based on the size, shape, and density of neurons in the hippocampal pyramidal cell layer, but this manual segmentation relying on cytoarchitecture is impractical to apply to a large number of samples and dependent on experimenters’ proficiency. Moreover, the CA2 area has been defined based on expression pattern of molecular marker proteins, but it generally takes days to complete immunostaining for such proteins. Thus, we asked whether the CA2 area can be systematically segmented based on cytoarchitecture alone. Since the expression pattern of regulator of G-protein signaling 14 (RGS14) signifies the CA2 area, we visualized the CA2 area in the mouse hippocampus by RGS14-immunostaining and Nissl-counterstaining and manually delineated the CA2 area. We then established “CAseg,” a machine learning-based automated algorithm to segment the CA2 area with the F1-score of approximately 0.8 solely from Nissl-counterstained images that visualized cytoarchitecture. CAseg was extended to the segmentation of the prairie vole CA2 area, which raises the possibility that the use of this algorithm can be expanded to other species. Thus, CAseg will be beneficial for investigating unique properties of the hippocampal CA2 area

Identification of Qk as a Glial Precursor Cell Marker that Governs the Fate Specification of Neural Stem Cells to a Glial Cell Lineage

神経幹細胞の運命を決める分子を発見 --脳形成機構の解明と脳腫瘍や精神疾患の治療法に期待--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2020-09-28.During brain development, neural stem cells (NSCs) initially produce neurons and change their fate to generate glias. While the regulation of neurogenesis is well characterized, specific markers for glial precursor cells (GPCs) and the master regulators for gliogenesis remain unidentified. Accumulating evidence suggests that RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) have significant roles in neuronal development and function, as they comprehensively regulate the expression of target genes in a cell-type-specific manner. We systematically investigated the expression profiles of 1, 436 murine RBPs in the developing mouse brain and identified quaking (Qk) as a marker of the putative GPC population. Functional analysis of the NSC-specific Qk-null mutant mouse revealed the key role of Qk in astrocyte and oligodendrocyte generation and differentiation from NSCs. Mechanistically, Qk upregulates gliogenic genes via quaking response elements in their 3′ untranslated regions. These results provide crucial directions for identifying GPCs and deciphering the regulatory mechanisms of gliogenesis from NSCs